Name That Baby!

Perhaps you have heard that I am working on a new baby. In all fairness I’m sure no one is surprised. Yes, it’s true. I am 28 weeks today. I believe it is the first week of the third trimester. You know what that means. Time to start getting uncomfortable again! But for the last time…presumably.

If you were not previously aware, this baby is a girl. I always thought naming girls would be easier than naming boys. That doesn’t seem to have been the case here. Both the boys had their names as soon as we knew what they were, or earlier in the case of Sully. Lily took a little longer. This one is proving much more problematic.

I had a girl name I liked picked out before we knew she was a she. Dave went with it, I guess not thinking that it might actually be a girl. As soon as the ultrasound tech told us and left the room he vetoed it. So uncool. That name was Estella Grace, to be called Ella. I still like it and it’s still what Connor is stuck on as he seems to be telling everyone that’s her name. Never ask a four year old to keep a secret.

From there we went to Isla Odessa. I like it, but unfortunately there are some issues with each of those names. If your spouse can’t remember how to say the baby’s name, that’s a red flag. It’s supposed to be pronounced ‘EYE-la’ but mostly he says it ‘EEE-la.’ He still spells Lily with too many l’s to this day so let’s not have him saying his next kid’s name wrong. The problem with Odessa comes from my mom who knew an Odessa, but she was the hired help.

Or maybe she was the ill-tempered poodle. Either way, bad connotations there.

Dave keeps suggesting Bridget. My mind goes straight to Bridget Jones, which I like as a book. However, when I see my new baby I don’t want to automatically see her as a slightly overweight, alcoholic British woman. I think that’s fair.

He likes it, though, so I was open to compromise. I told him that we could use it as long as we didn’t call her that. He seemed ok with that. And also I got to pick the spelling. Deal. So our latest incarnation is Brigitte Indiana whom we would call Indi. I liked it at first. I have wanted to name a girl Indiana for a long time. Unfortunately, it never occurred to me that it just might not work, maybe because I never thought I’d get to do it. Now that I have, though, I don’t really like it. It doesn’t flow, it doesn’t fit with the others’ names. It’s just kind of…off.

So now I’m back to Nameberry.com, hunting for the right name. There are a few that I like, but there’s always a problem. Maybe somebody already named their kid that. It’s her middle name, but I do not want them to think that they had any influence whatsoever in the naming of my child. Just trust me on this. If anything I’m mad at them for taking my name before I got to use it.

Or it’s the name of a girl that Dave knew once who used to do, well, let’s just say she did bad things.

Or it’s somebody’s ill-tempered poodle.

I’ve been sending Dave lists of names today via text and I’m sure every time his pocket quacks he’s cussing me. He’s at work. Most of the names I’ve picked are fairly classic, but then there’s a few that are definitely ones you’d remember. They would lend themselves to good nicknames, though. I’m sure if it continues like this for much longer I will be forced to poll the audience. So stay tuned!

Also it has occurred to me that while I’m sure no one wants to buy more of my offspring MORE baby shower stuff, I sure do miss the food that comes with the gathering. So I have decided that it would be most awesome if there was a kind of you-don’t-have-to-bring-a-gift baby shower. There would still be food, but more people would come because it’s free cake and punch, dude! And also no stupid games that I can’t stand. It’s win-win! Of course, if someone just WANTED to bring a gift I wouldn’t refuse it. That’s just bad manners, after all.

The invitation would probably be via Facebook, but not in status form. I’m not real sure about a Facebook baby shower open invitation. There’s no telling who might show up as you’re essentially inviting everyone on your friend list. How many of those people do you really know? One would assume that only the people you intend to come would see it as a clear invite, but you never know. Maybe that piercer/tattoo artist guy has a day off and wants to score some buttercream frosted goodness and some fizzy pineapple punch. Hey, you invited him…and 462 other people. Hope you ordered a big cake.

RSVP?

A Maternity Yarn

If you follow my Facebook, aside from being pretty bored with my lack of activity, you might have seen yesterday that I posted a casual, yet desperate mewling for maternity clothes.  You can go back and look; it’s still there.  If you’ve read anything else I’ve posted about being pregnant, you would know that there is almost not a reason for me to ask for maternity clothes as I am not showing at all at three and a half months.  There’s still time, I know.

Yesterday I tried to do some laundry and be generally not so lazy.  The thought of the garbage bag full of maternity clothes had flitted in and out of my mind for some weeks now.  I opened it up and started pulling it all out, one by one.  First I noticed how musty everything smelled.  Just a passing thought.  No, there doesn’t end up being a petrified squirrel trapped in full-panel slacks or anything.  Just musty.

The first thing I unearthed were the jeans that have seen me through each and every pregnancy.  I held them up and thought…Holy crap, these are huge!  There’s no way I can wear those!  Just like that, the panic that I had seen coming was here.  At the start of all my other pregnancies I weighed about 155 or more, which made the fact that I never gained more than 15 pounds with any of them that much more reassuring.  I started this one at a svelte 130.  Yeeeeah, safe to say that some articles of clothing just may not fit until the very end if even then.  I had been a little apprehensive about it, sure, but then it hit me as a hard fact.  Essentially, I have no maternity clothes.  Oh.  Holy.  Jesus.

I ended up  unloading four or five pairs of jeans, one pair of slacks, one pair of shorts, and a slew of solid color shirts, long sleeve and short, and a few sweaters.  I will definitely wear the sweaters, though, fit or not.  I found the pair of jeans that I wore to every OB appointment, partly because I thought they looked cutest, partly because I got to wear them tucked into my boots, and partly because it took the guesswork out of the being weighed.  I held them up and, again, thought, oh my good lord, these are huge!  Was I this big?  And no one thought to tell me?  Of course, they were probably afraid that I would eat them.

I’m kind of sad now.  Not just because I have no maternity clothes, though I will get to that briefly, but because the familiar clothes that always saw me through pregnancy were suddenly unavailable to me.  Perhaps it is largely due to hormones, but that made me sad.  The overalls that I fought so hard against for two pregnancies yet ended up liking for my third?  I don’t think I’ll be able to wear them this time. 

Man, losing weight can really cost you!  Before starting what you believe to be a successful weight loss regime, make sure you have the money set aside to purchase new clothes when the time comes.  That’s my PSA for this post.

So yet again I have a problem that 90% of women simply don’t want to hear and don’t give a damn about.  My clothes are too big.  I could make it sound worse and say “I’ve lost too much weight and now none of my clothes fit!”  I said that in a whiny voice, too.  I file this problem with my other problem of not being able to find a bra that fits, as my rib cage is too small.  I know, boo hoo, right?

So I decided to just cast my dilemma out there into the Facebook pond and see if I got any nibbles.  What I said was this:

“Anybody getting rid of maternity in sizes XS or S?  I know it’s a long shot.”

And it is a long shot.  Such a long shot, in fact, that you’d need a scope for it.  The most common sizes sold in this country in maternity wear are on the bigger side of the spectrum.  Plus-size maternity clothes have soared in popularity and are no longer hideously ugly if not nonexistent.  So if you’re a bigger gal who is knocked up, you’re in luck!  I am not in luck.  Yet another problem no one wants to hear.  It’s ok.  I totally understand.

I did, however, get a lead on a possible pair of jeans from a friend with a nine month old.  Fingers crossed.  Still waiting to hear how much she wants for them.  Maternity is not cheap.  This we know.  I have been pretty successful looking for maternity on eBay before.  So I tried again.  I would just like to go ahead and wonder aloud here why, oh why, there would be maternity clothes filed under Men’s Clothing and Unisex Clothing.  So I put in the search for jeans and size small.  Quite the hodge-podge I got back.  I saw a pair of pants that cannot have been from the last fifteen years.  Y’know how now maternity pants have the whole panel choice going on?  These had a big U-shape of stretchy material in the front.  Like a kangaroo.  Yours for only $5.99!  On the brighter side, I also saw a pair of Seven for All Mankind maternity jeans for $25.  Then again, there were only three bids on them and there’s no telling how far up that might go.  No bids on the kangaroo pouch pants, though.  See, it’s hit or miss, but worth looking.

Money is tighter now than it has been with all my other pregnancies, but hopefully it is about to improve.  Even so, I can only see myself getting to buy clothes one time and just hoping that I can use some of what I already have later on as I expand.  With that thought in mind I am going to wash all my maternity clothes and hang them up just in case.  And when this pregnancy is a recent memory, I will sell and/or give away my maternity clothes.  Because, as I said in another post, I have benched my ovaries for any remaining seasons.

Incidentally, this was my husband’s take on my having to buy maternity clothes.  “You’ll just have to do it gradually, y’know, like twenty bucks a month.”  That told me that he either had no idea what clothes cost or he really didn’t give a crap about me needing clothes.  I’m pretty certain it’s the former.